NEW ORLEANS – His team has enjoyed three straight 9-4 seasons. It has won three straight New Orleans Bowls. And it is this year’s coach’s-poll unanimous choice to win the Sun Belt Conference.

No wonder UL coach Mark Hudspeth wanted to tamper expectations just a tad during Tuesday’s Sun Belt Media Day at the Superdome here – especially when it comes to the suggestion of a possible 13-0 season for the Ragin’ Cajuns.

“We’ll never look ahead and say, ‘Hey, we want to win this many games,’ ” Hudspeth said when asked the possibility of topping nine victories in 2014.

“We just want to follow our plan to win, and do what we know it takes to win, and if we do that hopefully good things will happen.”

That ship, however, seemed to have sailed long before Hudspeth reached for the anchor.

And it was moving more like a hydrofoil than a paddleboat easing down the Mississippi.

“We, as a team, expect to be picked No. 1, and we, as a team, expect to win the conference,” said senior quarterback Terrance Broadway, who represented the Cajuns in New Orleans along with Hudspeth and senior running back Alonzo Harris. “It’s very possible for us to run the table. We just have to take our games step-by-step.”

The long ladder starts with an Aug. 30 opener against SWAC-champion Southern, and would require not only sweeping not only eight Sun Belt games but also beating Louisiana Tech at home and winning at both Boise State and Ole Miss in September.

And winning a fourth consecutive bowl game to boot.

“We accomplished all our goals so far, except for that one goal, which is being undefeated,” Harris said in looking back at his first three years as a Cajun.

“You know, it’s something that is one of the milestones that we set when we first got here – and we haven’t reached it yet, so we really want to reach it this year.

“I think it’s very realistic,” Harris added. “With the guys that we have, with the football experience that we have on both sides of the ball, it’s very realistic.”

UL placed a conference-high eight players on the Preseason All-Sun Belt first team announced earlier this week, including Preseason Offensive Player of the Year Broadway along with Harris, running back Elijah McGuire, receiver Jamal Robinson, offensive lineman Daniel Quave, defensive lineman Justin Hamilton, linebacker Dominique Tovell and defensive back Trevence Patt.

The individual honorees bolster the case for UL as clear-cut pick to win the conference, something opposing Sun Belt coaches deemed Tuesday to be a well-earned distinction.

“We’re not without questions marks, as every team probably has at this time of year,” Texas State coach Dennis Franchione. “Though I’m not sure Lafayette’s only question marks may be who they’re gonna put in the game, because they’ve got a lot back.”

“I think they deserve it, yeah. I do,” added first-year Arkansas State coach Blake Anderson, whose Red Wolves shared last season’s Sun Belt title with the Cajuns. “We had transition; they didn’t. That alone is enough to say they’ve got a leg up on us.”

“We don’t know a lot about them,” Satterfield said. “All we can do is look back and see what they did in the past few years. Coach Hud’s been there. You would assume they would continue on that same track that they did the last few years. They have a lot of starters back, an exceptional quarterback.

“I know this: When I was at (then-Sun Belt member Florida International) three years ago, they were a physical team. And he (Hudspeth) made that happen in a short period of time. Anytime you play that physical, you’re gonna give yourself a chance to win, so I would assume nothing’s gonna change in that aspect.”

At least five major preseason college football publications also picked UL to win the Sun Belt.

The Cajuns, for their part, seem determined to prove the prognosticators omniscient.

“It’s definitely something we have to live up to, and we’re gonna live up,” Harris said. “There’s no need for people to talk about us if we’re not gonna actually go out and perform and make their decision right.”

Hudspeth, though, is urging caution even in that regard.

He’s told his Cajuns as much, too.

“The thing I’m trying to get across to them is being being picked to be the unanimous preseason favorites, you’ve got a target on your back,” Hudspeth said. “And the thing about it is when you play, each team, each week, whether it’s at home or on the road – you’re gonna get their best shot.”